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Only two people are allowed to make the dough for Patsy's pizzas, which are baked in a brick oven. The owners profess their slices don't droop "99 percent" of the time- that's really crispy. Courtesy of Patsy's

This pizza at Coney Island Pizza in Riverdale does the "truffle shuffle" out of the oven. Say hello to homemade mozzarella, thin-cut asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, a sprinkling of basil and a drizzle of truffle oil. Courtesy of Coney Island Pizza

Brother Bruno's serves up a pie piled high with pasta, but that's not the only crazy pie they make. Don't forget about the Mac and Cheese Stuffed Crust pizza topped with BBQ bacon cheeseburgers and fries. Courtesy of Brother Bruno's Pizza, Deli & Bagels

The dessert pizza at Ferazzoli's Italian Kitchen starts with old-school thin-crust pizza dough, which is slathered in Nutella and then topped with whatever sweet treats you desire. Mitsu Yasukawa/NorthJersey.com

It's the luck of the draw at Se7te, which serves a different dessert pizza every day. One day it might be a Reese's Pieces pizza, another day may be cannoli pizza, and then there's still Nutella topped with strawberries. Courtesy of Se7te

Pizza lovers, I've got some disturbing news for you. If you've been buying pies instead of slices, you're being scammed. And you probably don't know it.

That's what a burning-hot investigative piece by the New York Post revealed the other day. How so? It turns out that the pizza pies in those see-through cases in your 'hood's pizza shop — the one you've trusted all these years — are not the same size as the ones you take home or get delivered. They're nearly always bigger (20 inches) than the pie that makes its way to your kitchen — by at least 2 inches (18 inches, sometimes 16 inches).

Most shops don't even have a box big enough to hold that mighty house-only pie.

"If someone wants the big pie, we have to put it in two boxes," said John Youssef, owner of Neil's Pizzeria in Little Ferry.

But his shop, as so many other shops, doesn't usually sell the 20-inch pie, which costs $20. That pie is for house slices. It sells its "large" pie, which is 4-inches slimmer in diameter for $11.50. Do the math — and see which is a better deal.

I couldn't — do the math, that is. So I asked my son, an economist with a PhD from Harvard, to do it for me. And?

According to my in-house expert, if the 16-inch pie had the same per-inch price as the 20-inch pie, it would cost $10.25.

But it's not as if his pizza shop is trying to cheat anyone, Youssef said. Its menu says in black and white "16 inch pie."

The pizza places I called were very forthright about the fact that their house-pizzas are bigger than their "large" size pizza for take-out.

"It's pretty much universal," said Frank Daher, who worked at Mark's Pizzeria & Restaurant in Hackensack for 17 years. He maintained, though, that getting a pie is better than buying lots of slices. "I always say why not get a large pie than, say, four slices."

When asked why the public doesn't know that the house pies are bigger than take-home pies, Daher said that the public is not aware of a lot. "We always have to do the work for them," he said.

At Rudy's Italian Pizzeria & Restaurant in Closter, the 20-inch pie, which it only sells by the slice, would cost $20 whole — since it yields 8 slices, each for $2.50. Its 16-inch pie is $14.

Not as good a deal, my in-house expert discerned: It should cost $12.80.

However, manager Tony Osso said people shouldn't nickel-and-dime pizza.

"It is the most economic food item you can buy," he said. "You can feed a family of four for $14. I can't think of a more economic food, unless you go to Wendy's and get the dollar menu."